Q&A: Chances are you're not carrying the right safety gear when you hike

MedicalXpress | мая 26, 2026

With the arrival of warmer weather across the United States, outdoor enthusiasts are returning to America's parks and forests to hike and run on the country's beautiful, often remote, networks of trails. But along with the influx of visitors comes a rise in wilderness emergencies, some of them requiring complex and expensive search-and-rescue operations. In a single week in April in New Hampshire's White Mountains, seven hikers were rescued and another was found dead on a trail after he didn't return from a solo backpacking trip.